Icelandic politician who became prime minister of Iceland in 2009. She was the country’s first female prime minister and the world’s first openly gay head of government (Per-Kristian Foss served briefly as acting prime minister of Norway in 2002)....

king of Norway (1177–1202) and one of the best-known figures in medieval Norwegian history. By expanding the power of the monarchy and limiting the privileges of the church, he provoked civil uprisings that were not quelled until 1217....

...offset gains made on the material and cultural planes. Contrary to provisions in the constitution, during Hoxha’s reign Albania was in effect ruled by the Directorate of State Security, known as the Sigurimi. To eliminate dissent, the government periodically resorted to purges, in which opponents were subjected to public criticism, dismissed from their jobs, imprisoned in forced-labour c...

Icelandic playwright who became internationally famous for one play, Fjalla-Eyvindur (1911; Danish Bjærg-Ejvind og hans hustru, 1911; Eyvind of the Mountains; filmed 1917, by Victor Sjöström), which created a sensation in Scandinavia and in Germany and was later produced in England and the United States...

...seems to have originated in Norway and to have been developed by Icelandic poets who, like Egill Skallagrímsson, spent much time in Norway or who wrote in praise of Norwegian kings, as did Sigvatr, counselor and court poet of Olaf II of Norway. Although the complexity of skaldic poetry has limited its modern readership, the orally transmitted poems of the 10th and 11th centuries became.....

twice king of Cambodia (1941–55 and 1993–2004), who also served as prime minister, head of state, and president. He attempted to steer a neutral course for Cambodia in its civil and foreign wars of the late 20th century....

town, autonomous municipality, and the only deepwater port of Cambodia, situated on a peninsula of the Gulf of Thailand. The port is connected with Phnom Penh, the national capital, by two major highways. It was first opened to ocean traffic in 1956; initial facilities were capable of handling simultaneously four 10,000-ton vessels, and additional facilities w...

There are a variety of other forms that are more or less restricted to folk poetry, such as the sīḥarfī (“golden alphabet”), in which each line or each stanza begins with succeeding letters of the Arabic alphabet. In Muslim India the bārāĩāsa (“12......

...year she had to summon a furious finish to defend her 10,000-metre world title after she fell during the race. In October 2008 Dibaba married two-time men’s 10,000-metre Olympic silver medalist Sileshi Sihine. Injuries curtailed her activities during 2009–11. Several months after her triumphant return to the medals podium at the 2012 London Olympics—in addition to her gold ...

In his last years a group of kibbutz members turned to him with their personal and communal problems. Siḥot loḥamin (1967; The Seventh Day, 1970), published by them shortly after the Six-Day War, testifies to Buber’s living spirit by its self-searching attitude on ethical questions of war and peace and on Arab–Jewish relations....

...earlier. Notable among the variants are the erhu, the small jinghu, and the four-stringed sihu. Similar bowed fiddles are also found in Southeast Asia, Korea (see haegŭm), and, less prominently, Ja...

...Yasuhiro in 1986 proposed the restructuring of the Japanese economy to make it rely almost entirely on domestic demand for growth. Plans for such changes were further taken up in the so-called Structural Impediments Initiative (SII) in the late 1980s. By the end of the decade it was generally acknowledged that formal barriers to trade had been largely dismantled, though areas such as......

...of Erfoud, Arab Sebbah du Ziz, Rissani, Seffalat, Aoufous, and Jorf, together with palm groves stretching 30 miles (50 km) along the Wadi Ziz. Its old capital was the Amazigh (Berber) stronghold of Sijilmassa, founded in ad 757 on the Saharan caravan route from the Niger River to Tangier. A prosperous city, it was destroyed in 1363, rebuilt by Mawlāy Ismāʿ...

small, forest-dwelling deer of the family Cervidae (order Artiodactyla), which is native to China, Korea, and Japan, where it was long considered sacred. (Sika means “deer” in Japanese.) It is farmed in China for its antlers, which are used in traditional medicine....

people inhabiting the mountains and coastal areas between the Bloh and Napung rivers in east-central Flores, one of the Lesser Sunda Islands, in Indonesia. Numbering about 180,000 in the late 20th century, they speak a language related to Solorese, which belongs to the Timor-Ambon language group. In 1929 the Nita and Kangae mountain domains were united with Sika territory to form an autonomous reg...

perennial vine of the gourd family (Cucurbitaceae), native to the New World tropics and cultivated as an ornamental plant and for its sweet-smelling edible fruit. The musk cucumber vine is fleshy and tall, with many tendrils. It can grow 12.5 metres (40 feet) long, with leaves up to 30 cm (12 inches) across. Both male and female flowers are yellow and borne on...

...(reigned 1517–26), continued intermittently to expand their control over the surrounding territory. Bahlūl pacified the Ganges–Yamuna Doab and subdued Etawah, Chandwar, and Rewari. Sikandar completed the pacification of Jaunpur (1493), campaigned into Bihar, and founded the city of Agra in 1504 as a base from which to launch his attempt to control Malwa and Rajasthan....

people inhabiting the mountains and coastal areas between the Bloh and Napung rivers in east-central Flores, one of the Lesser Sunda Islands, in Indonesia. Numbering about 180,000 in the late 20th century, they speak a language related to Solorese, which belongs to the Timor-Ambon language group. In 1929 the Nita and Kangae mountain domains were united with Sika territory to form an autonomous reg...

city, north-central Rajasthan state, northwestern India. The city is a major rail and road junction and engages in agricultural trade. Its handicrafts include textiles, pottery, enamel work, and lacquered goods. Sikar has two colleges affiliated with the University of Rajasthan....

city, southern Mali, West Africa. Sikasso was a small village before becoming the capital of the Kingdom of Kénédougou in the late 19th century. Today it constitutes a centre for cotton ginning and textile manufacturing. A road links Sikasso with Bamako, the national capital. The surrounding region is a mixture of lowland valleys in the central a...

ancient Sicilian tribe that occupied the eastern part of Sicily. Old tales related that the Siculi once lived in central Italy but were driven out and finally crossed to Sicily, leaving remnants behind—e.g., at Locri. They are hard to identify archaeologically, although some words of their Indo-European language are known. Phases of the Italic Apennine culture have been identified on the Eo...

Another group that requires women to wear turbans is the Sikh Dharma of the Western Hemisphere, founded in the United States in 1971 by Harbhajan Singh, who was always known as Yogi Bhajan. It is commonly known as the 3HO movement (Healthy Happy Holy Organization), though this is, strictly speaking, the name only of its educational branch. Most of its followers are white Americans who lay......

Until well into the modern era, most migrant Sikhs were traders who settled in India outside the Punjab or in neighbouring lands to the west. In the late 19th century, the posting of Sikh soldiers in the British army to stations in Malaya and Hong Kong prompted Sikh emigration to those territories, which eventually became jumping-off points for further migration to Australia, New Zealand, and......

Sikh fundamentalism first attracted attention in the West in 1978, when the fiery preacher Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale reportedly led a march to break up a gathering of the Sikh Nirankari movement (from Punjabi nirankar, “formless,” reflecting the movement’s belief in the nature of God), which orthodox Sikhs considered heretical. Bhindranwa...

legislation passed in India unanimously by the Punjab legislative council in July 1925 to end a controversy within the Sikh community that had embroiled it with the British government and threatened the tranquillity of the Punjab. The controversy had emerged over a reforming movement, organized as the Shiromani Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee (“Committee ...

Sikh Rahit Marayada, the manual that specifies the duties of Sikhs, names four rituals that qualify as rites of passage. The first is a birth and naming ceremony, held in a gurdwara when the mother is able to rise and bathe after giving birth. A hymn is selected at random from the Guru Granth Sahib, and a......

The Second Sikh War began with the revolt of Mulraj, governor of Multan, in April 1848 and became a national revolt when the Sikh army joined the rebels on September 14. Indecisive battles characterized by great ferocity and bad generalship were fought at Ramnagar (November 22) and at Chilianwala (Jan. 13, 1849) before the final British victory at Gujrat (February 21). The Sikh army surrendered......

Indian religion founded in the Punjab in the late 15th century. Its members are known as Sikhs. The Sikhs call their faith Gurmat (Punjabi: “the Way of the Guru”). According to Sikh tradition, Sikhism was established by Guru Nanak (1469–1539) and subsequently led by a succession of nine other Gurus. All 10 human Gurus, Sikhs believe, were ...

mountain complex in the Russian Far East, fronting the Tatar Strait and the Sea of Japan for 750 miles (1,200 km) northeast-southwest. Major geologic fault lines bound the area, and the structural trench of the Ussuri River valley lies along the northwest. The relief is complicated; the features of the region include eight main ranges, rising to a maximum height of 6,814 feet (2,077 m) in Mount Ta...

ancient Greek city in the northern Peloponnese about 11 miles (18 km) northwest of Corinth. Inhabited in Mycenaean times and later invaded by Dorians, Sicyon was subject to Argos for several centuries. In the 7th century bc, Sicyonian independence was established by non-Dorian tyrants, the Orthagorids. Under the Orthagorid ruler Cleisthenes (grandfather of the Athe...

...of the robes is central to the mysteries of the order. The dervishes wear over all other garments a black robe (khirqah), which symbolizes the grave, and the tall camel’s hair hat (sikke) represents the headstone. Underneath are the white “dancing” robes consisting of a very wide, pleated frock (tannūr), over which fits a short jacket......

state of India, located in the northeastern part of the country, in the eastern Himalayas. It is one of the smallest states in India. Sikkim is bordered by the Tibet Autonomous Region of China to the north and northeast, by Bhutan to the southeast, by the Indian state of West Bengal to...

...have a moderately short, soft, and dense coat. In some species the coat may be thicker and longer, somewhat woolly, or long and coarse; in others, such as the Sulawesian white-tailed rat and the Sikkim rat (R. remotus) of India, long and slender guard hairs resembling whiskers extend 4 to 6 cm beyond the coat on the back and rump. Very few Rattus species have......

In Siklós is a 13th-century castle with a fine Gothic and Renaissance interior. Szigetvár gained special significance in 1566 when the fortress there was put under siege by the invading Ottoman Turks. The Hungarian defenders, led by Nicholas Zrínyi, set fire to the fort rather than surrender and then launched a suicidal attack against the much larger Ottoman army. The......

Polish composer and writer on music. He spent his entire career in Warsaw, where he had mastered the piano and music theory; his compositions included cantatas and church music. He exerted his major influence as a music critic and as the editor and author of numerous musical publications....

...position drastically, for one of its foes now became a member of the Grand Alliance. Under British pressure the Polish government-in-exile reestablished relations with the Soviet Union through the Sikorski-Maysky accord, accepting the annulment of the Ribbentrop-Molotov treaty without an explicit Soviet renunciation of annexed Polish territory. The Soviets promised to release the deported......

...F100 and F119 jet fighter engines, and the RL10 and RD-180 rocket engines (the latter in partnership with the Russian rocket maker NPO Energomash) used to power Atlas, Titan, and Delta launchers. Sikorsky is a leading manufacturer of military and commercial helicopters. Among its products are the S-76 civil helicopter for corporate, government, offshore-oil, hospital, and airline......

...Vought Sikorsky VS-300, which used a single three-bladed main rotor for lift and a small vertical rotor mounted on the tail to counteract torque. With an order from the U.S. Army in 1944, Sikorsky’s R-4 became the world’s first production helicopter....

The preoccupation with the liturgy gave rise to scholarly disciplines, also called Vedangas, that were part of Vedic erudition. There were six such fields: (1) shiksa (instruction), which explains the proper articulation and pronunciation of the Vedic texts—different branches had different ways of pronouncing the texts, and these variations were......

North American Indian tribe composed of three closely related bands, the Piegan (officially spelled Peigan in Canada), or Piikuni; the Blood, or Kainah (also spelled Kainai, or Akainiwa); and the Siksika, or Blackfoot proper (often referred to as the Northern Blackfoot). The three groups traditionally lived in what is now Alberta, Canada, and the U.S. state of Montana, and there they remain, with ...

...be made of the most important texts in the four traditional divisions of Chinese learning—classical works, historical works, philosophical works, and belles lettres. The Sikuquanshu (“Complete Library in the Four Branches of Literature”) involved the scrutiny of entire libraries, both imperial and private, and was carried on for 10 years under the.....

Dance occasions for formalized flirtation between the sexes before marriage are common, as in the Sikya dance of the Akan of Ghana. The Bororo of western Cameroon celebrate the coming of the dry season with a dance for young men and women, and couples pair off at the climax of the performance. Among the Nupe of Nigeria ribald songs and joking insults between the sexes have replaced performances......

(Hopi: “Yellow House”), ruined pueblo extending over 10 to 15 acres (4 to 6 hectares) in present Navajo county, northeastern Arizona, U.S. The site was occupied by members of the Firewood, or Kokop, clan of the Hopi during the Regressive Pueblo stage (c. ad 1300–1700) of the Ancestral Pueblo culture. Archae...

Also of considerable importance in the description of the indigenous languages of America has been the work of linguists trained by the American Bible Society and the Summer Institute of Linguistics, a group of Protestant missionary linguists. Because their principal aim is to produce translations of the Bible, they have necessarily been concerned with meaning as well as with grammar and......

Considered female by the ancients, the ghūl was often confused with the sílā, also female; the sílā, however, was a witchlike species of jinn, immutable in shape. A ghūl stalked the desert, often in the guise of an attractive woman, trying to distract travelers, and, when successful, killed and ate them. The sole defense that on...

in Buddhism, morality, or right conduct; sīla comprises three stages along the Eightfold Path—right speech, right action, and right livelihood. Evil actions are considered to be the product of defiling passions (see āsrāva), but their causes are rooted out only by the exerc...

in Buddhism, morality, or right conduct; sīla comprises three stages along the Eightfold Path—right speech, right action, and right livelihood. Evil actions are considered to be the product of defiling passions (see āsrāva), but their causes are rooted out only by the exerc...

...of the Apennine Range by the Mount Pollino massif (7,375 feet [2,248 m]), which is continued southward by the west coast range, which is in turn separated by the Crati River from the extensive La Sila massif (rising to 6,325 feet [1,928 m]). A narrow isthmus between the gulfs of Sant’Eufemia (west) and Squillace (east) separates the northern from the southern part of the region, in which...

forage plants such as corn (maize), legumes, and grasses that have been chopped and stored in tower silos, pits, or trenches for use as animal feed. Since protein content decreases and fibre content increases as the crop matures, forage, like hay, should be harvested in early maturity. The green material should be chopped fine enough to assure good packing and the exclusion of a...

any of a series of covalently bonded compounds containing only the elements silicon and hydrogen, having the general formula SinH2n + 2, in which n equals 1, 2, 3, and so on. The silanes are structural analogues of the saturated hydrocarbons (alkanes) but are much less stable. The term silane is extended to include compounds in which any or all of the hyd...

city, west-central Guanajuato estado (state), north-central Mexico. Founded in 1537, Silao lies along the Silao River at 5,830 feet (1,777 metres) above sea level. By virtue of its location in the Bajío region, known as the granary of Mexico, Silao is an important agricultural centre. A wide varie...

novel by George Eliot, published in 1861. The story’s title character is a friendless weaver who cares only for his cache of gold. He is ultimately redeemed through his love for Eppie, an abandoned golden-haired baby girl, whom he discovers shortly after he is robbed and rears as his own child....

novel by George Eliot, published in 1861. The story’s title character is a friendless weaver who cares only for his cache of gold. He is ultimately redeemed through his love for Eppie, an abandoned golden-haired baby girl, whom he discovers shortly after he is robbed and rears as his own child....

Havlicek was still a key contributor, along with Dave Cowens, Paul Silas, and Jo Jo White, on teams coached by Heinsohn that won titles in 1973–74 and 1975–76. The second of those championships included a dramatic triple-overtime victory over the Phoenix Suns in game five of the finals. In 1978 the Celtics were involved in an unusual transaction after the NBA blocked the team’...

city, northern Negros island, central Philippines. Situated on Guimaras Strait, just north of Bacolod, Silay is a busy commercial and fishing port and the site of a large sugar mill, which handles the crop of the Silay-Talisay area, one of the country’s leading sugarcane regions. The city is linked to other population centres on Negro...

...Canada, northeastern British Columbia, and the western United States. This proposal was primarily the work of the Canadian paleontologist E. Timothy Tozer, who, with the American paleontologist Norman J. Silberling, provided precisely defined stratotypes for all the recognized North American biozones. The North American zonal scheme is now accepted by most authorities as the standard for......

...the ensuing years, the Berlin International Film Festival expanded to include some 400 films screened over 10 days. It also added prizes, including Golden Bears for best film and short film and Silver Bear (Silberner Bär) awards for best director, actor, and actress. In 1978 the festival was moved from June to February. By the early 21st century,......

...at Avebury and the Sanctuary were all probably built about the same time by Neolithic communities, one of whose habitation sites was crossed by the Kennet Avenue, but dates remain uncertain. Nearby Silbury Hill, at 130 feet (40 metres) high the largest prehistoric mound in Europe, was not used as a burial site, and the reason for its construction remains unknown....

silica-rich duricrust, an indurated, or hardened, layer in or on a soil. It generally occurs in a hot, arid climate where infrequent waterlogging causes silica to dissolve and be redeposited to cement soil grains together. Silcrete is extremely hard and resistant to weathering and erosion but eventually weathers spheroidally to produce boulders and angular fragments. I...

Silcrust formation requires the selective concentration of silica, a fact that has led some experts to consider silcrusts as the lower parts of ferricrust profiles. The distributional contrast between silcrusts and ferricrusts is clear, however, and the transition between the types is well documented. Silcrusts often, but not invariably, result from the silicification of sandstones and......

trade name of the first oral drug for male impotence, introduced by the pharmaceutical company Pfizer, Inc., in 1998. Also known by the chemical name sildenafil citrate, it is one of a category of drugs known as phosphodiesterase-5 inhibitors. See also PDE-5 inhibitor....

pileless floor covering from the southern Caucasus and parts of eastern Turkey. Formerly the term was used to refer to a type of flatweave whose name in its area of origin is vernehor verné, but it has now come to be used for a group of flatweaves, which may or may not be woven in two pieces and joined on the lo...

...in a war story about Japanese doctors performing a vivisection on a downed American pilot. One of Endō’s most powerful novels, Chimmoku (1966; Silence), is a fictionalized account of Portuguese priests who traveled to Japan and the subsequent slaughter of their Japanese converts. This novel and Samurai (198...

...a collection of short films by various directors; the collection celebrated the experience of going to the movies. Le Silence de Lorna (2008; Lorna’s Silence), which won best screenplay at Cannes, portrays the lengths to which a young Albanian woman will go to secure a measure of happiness. In the suspenseful Le......

...fantastic comedies, and And Then There Were None (1945), an adaptation of a mystery by Agatha Christie. After the war, he returned to France, where he made Le Silence est d’or, a masterful renewal of his Parisian past and his youth, which was to be his artistic testament. Though Clair’s subsequent films, such as L...

It was The Silence of the Lambs (1991), starring Jodie Foster and Anthony Hopkins, that cemented Demme’s place as a top-notch director. The drama about a young female FBI agent pursuing a serial killer swept the Academy Awards,......

French novelist and artist-engraver, who wrote Le Silence de la mer (1941; The Silence of the Sea), a patriotic tale of self-deception and of the triumph of passive resistance over evil. The novella was published clandestinely in Nazi-occupied Paris and served to rally a spirit of French defiance....

...a reaction set in, though Bergman continued to make films and direct plays with undiminished activity; and his trilogy of films, Through a Glass Darkly, Winter Light, and The Silence, dealing with the border line between sanity and madness and that between human contact and total withdrawal, was regarded by many as his crowning achievement. ......

(Avestan: “tower of silence”), Parsi funerary tower erected on a hill for the disposal of the dead according to the Zoroastrian rite. Such towers are about 25 feet (8 m) high, built of brick or stone, and contain gratings on which the corpses are exposed. After vultures have picked the bones clean, they fall into a pit below, thereby fulfilling the injunction that a corpse must not ...

His efforts to improve the gasoline-powered automobile led to research on the exhaust muffler, which in turn brought the discovery of the principle that made possible the famous “silencer.” This invention brought him fame, and even notoriety, as editors, writers, and the general public mistakenly assumed that the device could be attached to the pistols of criminals; in actuality, it....

device through which the exhaust gases from an internal-combustion engine are passed to attenuate (reduce) the airborne noise of the engine. To be efficient as a sound reducer, a muffler must decrease the velocity of the exhaust gases and either absorb sound waves or cancel them by interference with reflected waves coming from the same source....

...and unfinished) in 1974 as Yonnondio: From the Thirties. She wrote several essays about the forces that interfere with the full development and expression of literary gifts. In Silences (1978) she collected these essays along with quotations from and comments on authors who suffered from the stultifying effects of discrimination and repression. Despite its patchwork......

common name for ornamental rock-garden or border plants constituting the genus Silene, of the pink, or carnation, family (Caryophyllaceae), consisting of about 720 species of herbaceous plants distributed throughout the world. Members of the genus Lychnis are included in Silene....

...others have branched clusters of red, white, or pink flowers. Each of the five petals has a narrow, stalklike base, sometimes with scales at the junction of the base and the broad upper part. Bladder campion (S. vulgaris) has large, white, drooping flowers, and it has subspecies in different habitats throughout Europe. Many species are cultivated. Maltese Cross, or Jerusalem Cross......